Meet the Executive Board

Our Executive Board is responsible for day-to-day management and decision-making, and our Chief Executive Helen Brand OBE reports directly to Council.

The team is made up of six high-performing people whose experience combines accountancy and strategic leadership.

The Executive Board is:

Chief Executive - Helen Brand OBE

Executive Director - content, quality and innovation - Alan Hatfield

Executive Director - people and transformation 
- Julie Hotchkiss

Executive Director - finance and operations - Raymond Jack

Executive Director - strategy and governance - Maggie McGhee

Executive Director - relationships - Lucia Real Martin

  • Helen Brand

    Helen Brand

    Helen Brand is chief executive of ACCA, the global body for professional accountants, a post she has held since 2008.

    Helen has built her career within professional bodies and has considerable experience and knowledge of the 181 markets in which ACCA currently operates. She was a founding member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and played a role in its successor organisations. She has participated in a number of university advisory boards.

    Helen is a member of the UK government’s Professional and Business Services Council, and she was appointed to the UK DBT’s Trade Advisory Group on Professional Advisory Services in August 2020. In 2022, under India’s leadership, she was a member of the B20 Task Force on the future of Work, Skills and Mobility and in June 2023 she joined the Board of the UK-ASEAN Business Council (UKABC).

    One of the few women to lead a global professional body, Helen is a regular media commentator on the role ethics and the delivery of public value play in business and society. In 2011, ACCA became the first international professional body to publish an integrated report on its performance and Helen remains a strong advocate for the power of wider corporate reporting. She has also driven ACCA’s pioneering work in supporting the development of the profession across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

    Helen holds a BA in Politics from the University of Exeter. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2011 for services to accountancy and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in December 2017.

    Job title: Chief Executive
  • Alan Hatfield

    Alan Hatfield

    Alan Hatfield is executive director of content, quality and innovation at ACCA.

    Alan leads our development of forward-thinking content and solutions across education, learning, professional insights research and brand. This includes responsibility for innovation in the ACCA Qualification, and supports the careers, professional development and studies of ACCA’s 241,000 members and 542,000 future members across 178 countries.

    Alan’s background is in professional education where he has over 25 years’ experience leading teams in creating and launching qualifications and development programs.

    He is a member of the International Federation of Accountants’ (IFAC) International Panel for Accountancy Education.

    Alan is a graduate of Glasgow University and a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. He holds an MBA (with distinction) from Oxford Brookes University.

    Job title: Executive Director - Content, Quality and Innovation
  • Julie Hotchkiss

    Julie Hotchkiss

    Julie Hotchkiss was appointed to the ACCA executive team in November 2018 and now holds the role of executive director - people and transformation. In this role, Julie is responsible for ensuring the people agenda and major change activities are fully aligned to enable the organisation’s strategy.

    Prior to this, Julie was the director – Europe and Americas, where she had a key role in growing and maintaining ACCA’s international footprint and reputation. In this strategic leadership role, Julie played her part in developing the accountancy profession, working with members, students, employers and national professional accounting organisations in a wide range of countries.

    Julie joined ACCA in 2014 as director of customer service, where she ran ACCA’s 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year customer service centre, ACCA Connect, and exam operations worldwide from the body’s global operational centre in Glasgow. Before joining ACCA, Julie had worked in local government, insurance and utilities.

    Job title: Executive Director, People and Transformation
  • Raymond Jack

    Raymond Jack

    Raymond Jack joined us in January 2013 as our executive director - finance and operations.

    He is a former executive director of Scottish Power Energy Retail, where he also held posts including sales and marketing director and business transformation director. Raymond began his career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), where he spent 12 years largely specialising in corporate finance, recovery and consulting.

    A chartered accountant, he also has a degree in accountancy and a Master's degree from the University of Cambridge.  

    Job title: Executive Director, Finance and Operations
  • Maggie McGhee

    Maggie McGhee

    Maggie leads ACCA’s development of strategy and ACCA’s corporate governance arrangements and the governance of ACCA members and students.

    Our integrated thinking and integrated reporting, reinforcing that being a force for public good is at the heart of what we do. ACCA’s corporate governance arrangements and the governance of ACCA members and students are fundamental in ensuring we actively supporting ethics and integrity in the profession.

    With a background in audit and technical accounting, Maggie was previously the Director of Professional Insights at ACCA, where she led a team of technical and policy experts to support ACCA’s global thought leadership agenda.

    Before joining ACCA, Maggie worked for PwC in the Advanced Regulatory and Compliance Analytics area applying specialist analytics tool to clients in the banking and capital markets sector.

    A chartered accountant with a degree in law, Maggie trained with the National Audit Office UK where she was the Director General of Audit. With over 18 years’ experience of auditing central government bodies, Maggie’s engaged extensively across the audit and accounting profession, both within the UK and internationally, to influence sector developments. As part of this work, Maggie’s been a member of a number of working groups and committees including the Accountancy Europe’s Public Sector Working Group, the EU European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) Working Group; HM Treasury’s Financial Reporting Advisory Board in the UK; and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Audit and Assurance Council.

    Job title: Executive Director, Strategy and Governance
  • Lucia Real Martin

    Lucia Real Martin

    Lucia Real-Martin is the Executive Director, Relationships for ACCA. In her role, Lucia is accountable for the development and advancement of ACCA’s relationships in our markets, contributing to growing ACCA’s influence around the world.

    Reporting to the Chief Executive, and part of the Executive Team, Lucia leads the implementation of ACCA’s strategy through ACCA’s relationships and partnerships for ACCA’s markets. Lucia and her team contribute to the achievement of ACCA’s strategic balanced scorecard by leading Relationships teams globally in all the countries and regions where ACCA operates to support members and future members achieve their career goals while collaborating with partners to progress ACCA’s purpose and vision.

    Lucia joined ACCA in 2010, as Director - Emerging Markets Asia developing ACCA’s emerging markets strategy throughout Asia. In 2014, Lucia assumed a global role for ACCA’s growing emerging markets managing over 40 countries and 12 offices. She has been a member of the Executive team since 2019.

    Lucia has 28 years’ international business and strategy experience developing a global footprint for organisations in a number of sectors, with the last 18 years in the accounting profession. Lucia’s focus has been to build opportunities for the upskilling of finance and accounting professionals whilst developing the profession regionally and globally. She has built relationships with governments, regulators, employers and educators, first within the Australian accounting profession working in Asia Pacific, and now with ACCA globally.

    Having always worked globally, Lucia has focused on strategic and sustainable partnerships, market strategy development, capacity building and leading global teams.

    She was educated in Spain, UK and Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Marketing (Honours) and a Masters in Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

    Job title: Executive Director, Relationships